Analysis: at the Center of Trump's Homeland Chaos, Stephen Miller Is the Lone Survivor

He's the only permanent fixture on immigration policy

Published Apr 8, 2019 at 6:12 PM

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In this March 28, 2019, file photo, White House acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, left, walks with White House senior adviser Jared Kushner, and White House senior adviser Stephen Miller, to board the Marine One helicopter on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, to travel with President Donald Trump en route to Michigan.

The iconoclastic hard-line young conservative policy aide to President Donald Trump, hated by the left, and celebrated by the extreme right, is the obvious winner in the power struggle that led to Kirstjen Nielsen's ousting Sunday night as Homeland Security secretary.

He's unofficially taking the reins of border security amid a purge at the department that has also seen Secret Service Director Randolph "Tex" Alles removed from his job and Trump's pick to head the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, Ron Vitiello, yanked.

Miller has survived them all. He's the only permanent fixture on immigration policy. That means he's running the show — and the president's success or failure is on him.

Carson Won't Say If He'd Let Grandmother Live in Public Housing

Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson was asked Tuesday by Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., if he would let his grandmother live in public housing. Their heated exchange came during a hearing of the House Financial Services Committee.

(Published Wednesday, May 22, 2019)

President Donald Trump's re-election strategy depends on locating Americans who agree with him but don't usually vote and driving them out to the polls in droves. That, he has clearly concluded, means taking the hardest possible line on immigration and presenting it primarily as a security issue.